


First Day / Last Day

by maastrictian



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-21
Updated: 2014-12-21
Packaged: 2018-03-02 17:32:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2820431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maastrictian/pseuds/maastrictian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>March 23rd 2002 is Amy Santiago's first day on the job.  January 2nd 2026 is Rosa Diaz's last day on the job.  A case and a friendship span those twenty four years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Day / Last Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fabrega](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fabrega/gifts).



**First Day - March 23rd, 2002 - 11:35 AM**

“Oh god, I’m never going to make captain.”

 

Rosa Diaz looked down at the officer who lay on the concrete floor, the breath knocked out of her.  
  


“Never,” Rosa replied.  

 

Amy started to get up, “We can still catch him!”

 

“He’s gone.”

 

Amy Santiago let out a moan and fell back to the floor.  “Gone?” she wailed.

 

“Santiago!  What are you doing on the floor?”  The Sergeant, a massive man built like an NFL linebacker, turned the corner and bellowed at the two officers.

 

“Oh, sir!” Amy held out her hand for Rosa to help her up.  

 

Rosa let her wait for a second, giving her a fierce glare before helping Officer Santiago to her feet.

 

Amy climbed to her feet on her own.  “Sir, I- we- the murderer!”

 

Rosa took over talking duty, “Sergeant, the perp got past Santiago.  Didn’t want to go past me, went out the window instead. He fell four stories into the back of a moving garbage truck.  Probably broke a leg.”  That last thought brought a smile to Rosa’s face.

 

“Not exactly a great first day Officer Santiago.” Sergeant Jeffords started barking orders into his radio, organizing the chase.

 

Amy contemplated dying of shame, but that would certainly rule out any chance of making captain.  

  
  


**Last Day - January 2nd, 2026 - 7:57 PM**

Santiago pulled her coat tighter against the cold.  Twenty years ago she would have ignored it, but she was older now, and the cold seemed to bite deeper.  With her NYDP data entry device she scanned the back bumper of the car, the device giving a satisfying little “bloop” at it ran the plate.

 

“That’s my car!”

 

“You’re parked illegally.”

 

“What’s illegal?” Rosa exclaimed.

 

Amy pointed at the alternate side parking sign.  No parking first Friday of the month, noon to 8PM. “You’re parked illegally,” she repeated.

 

“I’m a cop!”

 

Amy gave Rosa a look that was colder than the January air. “You’re parked illegally.”

 

“I’m parked outside the stupid bar for the stupid retirement party -” Amy opened her mouth, but Rosa wasn’t having it - “that you are fucking throwing for me!”

 

“Fine,” Amy sighed, putting the pad away, “this time.”

 

“Nerd.”

  
  


**First Day - March 23rd, 2002 - 5:03 PM**

“Officers, get your reports in before the end of the shift!  Brass is going to want to know how we let the Bodega Butcher get away.”

 

Amy sunk even lower in her chair.  Behind her, one of a pair of overweight detectives chortled to the other, “Well  Hitchcock, I’m not the department screw up anymore.  Guess I have time for another nap.”  They sauntered off to the breakroom.

 

Amy flipped through the folder.  The eight page incident report would take her at least two hours to complete in triplicate.  Maybe two and a half, considering all the addendums she would need to attach.

 

Officer Diaz brushed past her rookie partner.  She paused.  She was going to regret this.  “Do you want help with your report?”

 

Amy’s voice overflowed with newfound hope, “Help?  Yes please!  I need someone to double check my penal code citations.”

 

Yup, Rosa regretted it.  “Not going to happen.  Here, let me see what you’ve got.”  Rosa picked up the papers, and promptly tore them in half.  Amy’s heart stopped.  “Yea, you don’t need half of this crap.  Short and sweet is going to get you out of this.”  She handed one untorn page back to Amy.  “Fill this one out.  Front and back.  And make sure its on the captain’s desk in half an hour.”

 

Amy had recovered, mostly. “You destroyed my report.”

 

“Yep.”

 

“Thank you?”

 

“You’re welcome, nerd.”  She turned to go.

 

“Rosa, wait!  The perp.  He broke his leg, right?”

 

“Have you ever fallen four stories into a garbage truck?”

 

Amy was incredulous, “No.”

 

Rosa snorted, “Well, trust me, if you fall that far you’re gonna break some bones.”

 

“So he must have made it to a hospital.  We could ask around.”

 

“That’s work for a detective, Santiago, not for a wet-behind-the-ears patrol officer and her partner.”

 

“Yeah, but we should help!” She continued more quietly, “And I hear that Hitchcock and Scully aren’t the best detectives on the force.”

 

“You could say that.”

 

“So its our job to check out any lead we can think of.  We have to find this guy!”

 

Rosa’s eyes narrowed and she sighed.  “Fine.  But tomorrow.  I’m going home.  And you’ve got a report to write.”

 

Amy reply was far too cheerful, “Yes I do!  See you tomorrow!”

  
  


**Last Day - January 2nd, 2026 - 11:10 PM**

The speeches went on for hours, it wasn’t just that it seemed that way to Rosa.

 

Hitchcock spilled beer over Scully’s operatic sheet music, so Scully had to dry the pages with the electric hand dryer in the bathroom.  Gina’s interpretive dance troupe E-MOTION performed a musical medley featuring a song for every year that Rosa was on the force.  And Amy’s speech spanned eight double sided pages and referenced the words of her heroes: Cicero, John F. Kennedy, and Raymond J. Holt.

 

It’s not until late in the night that Rosa and Amy got a quiet moment alone.  Amy’s was holding a thin manila envelope in her hand.  She clutched it with the same excitement that she clutched a positive performance review from Captain Holt all those years ago - as if she wanted to show it to the world while at the same time she refuses to let is go lest it vanish into thin air.

 

“I’ve got a present for you, Rosa.”

 

“I hate presents.”

 

“Just, well.  I think you’ll like this one.”

 

She handed the envelope to Rosa.  With a glare, Rosa opened it, revealing a sheet of x-ray film, the bones blue ghosts against the black of the sheet.  Rosa is no doctor, but she could clearly see two bright pins through the femur, just above the knee.  Her voice became deadly serious, “This is recent?”  

 

“Taken today.”  

 

“Have you arrested him?”

 

“Not without you.  The hospital's only a few minutes away.  You’re still a cop until midnight, right?”

 

Rosa’s face broke into a wide grin.  She grabbed her jacket and they were both out of the bar like a shot.

  
  


**First Day - March 29th,  2002 - 10:49 AM**

It had been a week since the suspect, the Bodega Butcher, had gotten past Officer Santiago in that narrow concrete hallway.  Tuesday they were on foot patrol, Wednesday was processing perps in holding, Thursday foot patrol again, Friday everyone got yelled at by a Deputy Commissioner for lack of progress on the Bodega Butcher case, and Saturday was spent securing a different crime scene for detective Hitchcock.  The detective had managed to lock himself in a closet while searching for the murder weapon.

 

But every day Santiago had found an hour or two to call city hospitals.  Rosa heard most of the calls -- how could she not, since Amy was her partner after all?  It seemed like a colossal waste of time.  What were the odds that a busy emergency room nurse would remember a 30 to 40 year old caucasian man with a broken leg?  That was a pretty tame injury for the city.  

 

By Thursday, however, Officer Diaz had been roped into making calls too.  She called ERs in Manhattan and the Bronx while Amy called hospitals closer to home.  

 

Amy hung up the phone with a broad grin on her face.  

 

“Don’t smile, I’m still mad at you.”

 

“But!  I found him.  I mean, I think I did.  Broken leg, white, same age and height as the perp.  We’ve got to tell Detective Scully!”

 

“And watch him screw this up?”

 

“But, he’s the primary on the case!”

 

“And we’re going to save him some legwork.”

 

Thirty minutes later they were in the Queens Hospital Emergency Department.  And a doctor was giving them lip, “The guy’s been gone for forty eight hours, I don’t know what you two are doing here.”

 

“Trying to solve a crime,” barked Rosa.  It was good that they were already in the ER - at this rate the doctor was going to need emergency medicine pretty soon.

 

Amy tried to smooth things over, “She just means that we really appreciate your help, Doctor.”  She kept going before Rosa could interject. “If he’s not here now do you have a description of him, or maybe some photos?”

 

The doctor rummaged through his patient’s chart, “Photos? We don’t take mugshots officer.  But we took some x-rays of the leg he broke.  See, this one is after the surgery.”

 

Amy snatched the x-ray out of his hand.  The bone was held together, just above the knee, by two bright white pins.  Officer Santiago smiled.  

  
  


**Last Day - January 3rd, 2026 - 11:50 PM**

They rolled up to NYU Medical Center in two vehicles - Amy in her black and white and Rosa in her civvie car.  At first they waited in silence for the elevator.  But Rosa finally relented - Amy deserved to brag a little, she figured.  “So how’d you find him.”

 

“I just kept asking around at ERs about guys with two pins in their leg.  One of the doctors must have remembered me - he gave me a call when the guy came in.”

 

“Leg hurting him?”

 

Amy smiled, “Bad knees.  He’s having surgery tomorrow.”

 

“Good.  That probably hurts a lot.”

 

“He matches the age of our perp, he lived in the city in 2002, and the pins are a dead match for the x-ray we collected back then.”

 

“Its been twenty years.”

 

“Twenty four,” Amy corrected.  “There’s no statute of limitations on murder.”

 

The elevator still hadn’t come.

 

“Thanks.  For, you know, having me along.  You’re a good friend.”

 

Amy blushed underneath the gold braid on her captain’s hat.  

 

“You’re never going to make captain, though.”

 

The elevator doors opened and they both stepped in, captain and detective, to close the case.

 

 


End file.
